Policymakers in most developing countries are concerned about high dropout rates and poor student learning in primary education. The government of the Philippines initiated the Dropout Intervention Program in 1990-92 as part of its effort to address these issues. Under this program, four...

The authors explore differences in education in rich and poor countries by first systematically documenting the relationship between per capita GNP and various indicators of educational development. They then exploit a simple accounting identity relating the availability of resources to their...

Until comparatively recently, most training in most countries has been enterprise-based and has been financed by the employer, by the trainee, or both jointly, normally without money changing hands. As a first approximation, the cost of firm-specific training is absorbed by the employer, and the...

This hands-on, interactive guide to evaluating and revamping education policy is designed to help policymakers in low-income countries identify weakness and make the most efficient use of scarce education resources. Education specialist in the developed world will also find this guide to be an...

Pension systems may have a different impact on gender because women are less likely than men to work in formal labor markets and earn lower wages when they do. Recent multipillar pension reforms tighten the link between payroll contributions and benefits, leading critics to argue that they will...

A hot issue in development economics is how much to rely on user charges and private organizations to provide such social services as health and education. Most analysts arguing on either side of the issue assume that any policy decisions involve a tradeoff between equity and efficiency. The...

The proportion of students enrolled in private rather than public schools varies greatly among countries. The author tries to explain (1) the systematically higher proportion of enrollment in private schools in developing countries than in developed countries, at the secondary level, and (2) the...

What is the most cost-effective way to organize individual accounts that are part of a mandatory social security system? Defined-contribution individual account components of social security systems are criticized for being too expensive. The authors investigate the cost-effectiveness of two...